Fresh off victories in Williamstown yesterday, Jessica Allen (WA) and Caleb Ewan (NSW) have claimed the men’s and women’s Australian criterium titles in Ballarat.
The Australian championships continue tomorrow with the time trials and Sunday for the road races.
Just one day after winning the final day of the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic in Williamstown, Jessica Allen has once again soloed to victory, this time to be awarded a converted green and gold jersey as the 2017 Australian criterium champion.
23-year-old Allen, along with 22-year-old teammate Jenelle Crooks, dominated the 30 lap criterium, initiating or marking all of the moves before Allen escaped solo with five laps of the 1.1km course remaining.
“I’m lost for words,” an emotional Allen said on the finish line. “It’s been an awesome few days with Orica and I’m just a bit emotional to be honest. Thank you to my teammates for believing in me.”
Reigning champion Caleb Ewan has successfully defended his Australian criterium championship with a sprint victory in Ballarat this evening.
It was the second win in as many days for the 22-year-old from New South Wales after he, like women’s winner Jessica Allen, won the final stage of the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic in Williamstown yesterday.
With just two teammates for company this year, Mitch Docker and Damien Howson worked hard to cover the early moves but it was IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness who created the bunch sprint after putting nine riders on the front of the peloton in the closing laps.
“Coming back to the crits in Australia I do feel a little bit of pressure because I’ve done well here in the past few years,” Ewan said. “We started with a few less guys than we would have hoped and that was always going to make the race hard, but luckily it came together in the end.”
